I'm talking about how, when you're in love, everything looks different, colors seem brighter and blah blah blah...Like even if you're listening to cheesy 70's love songs, suddenly you're staring off into space and nodding your head absently, going "Yeah....I get it now! The muskrats, they loved each other....they really really loved each other..."

 

Anyone who's been married more than twenty-four hours has no idea what I'm talking about. Those folks are just reading this and scratching their heads.

 

But anyone who remembers what it's like to be 15 years old (or anyone reading this who is 15 years old) knows exactly what I'm talking about. Because this happens to 15 year olds all the time, where every time they see a pretty girl they get little cartoon hearts dancing in their eyes. It happens to adults, too, only much less often, which is one of the things that kind of sucks about being an adult, that you lose that passion. But at least, unlike 15 year olds, when you're an adult you don't have to walk around with a boner all the time.

 

It's kind of like having a split personality, except that each separate personality knows what the other one is doing. What I mean is, when you're "in love," you act all goofy and stupid and you probably even hate that you're acting that way even though you can't help it. And then when you're not in love and you're walking around acting normally (or at least as normal as you can act, you freak) then you wonder why did you ever do any of that stupid crap.

 

In a way, it's like the Incredible Hulk, how he's just a normal guy walking around going "la la la," and then someone punches him in the head or he just finds out that he doesn't have enough change for the payphone, and then it's like he's this whole other guy who acts in a totally different way. It's just like that when you fall in love, well, except that it's the exact total opposite of that. Because when you're in love you're just happy but when you're an incredible hulk you're pissed all the time.

 

It's worse if you fall in love and act all goofy, and then you marry the person and things all simmer down, and then you get reminded for the rest of your life that you stuttered uncontrolably every time you called her on the phone, or tripped over your own feet trying to open a door for her, or sat outside her window til 4:00 am talking to her after the prom. It always starts like this, all intense and overwhelming, like how a match when you first strike it flares really bright and then settles into a warm glow.

 

Before I get too romantic about warm glows, let me also just say that it's also very much like hemorrhoids, or getting kicked in the nuts, or anytime when you feel really intense pain that eventually subsides and leaves you feeling weirdly comforted that it doesn't hurt anymore. And sure, no one likes hemorrhoids, or getting kicked in the nuts, but once the pain is gone you're just so glad that it doesn't hurt anymore, you almost don't mind how much it hurt in the first place. I don't know how I got on this subject.